Monday, May 07, 2012

Business Wire: FastVision announced that its FC300 camera is built around the quiet, high speed sensor supplied by Panavision Imaging. "Panavision Imaging now offers one of the quietest CMOS sensor designs in the world," says Dr. Joseph Sgro, CEO of FastVision and its sister company Alacron. "Our new FC300 camera reflects many advantages of this new sensor including low cost and high speed of 3.2 megapixels running at 180 frames per second."

Sgro explains that this technology can be made into a back-side imager (BSI) with delta doping (DD) and anti-reflective (AR) coating. "Our technology development effort over the past several years with Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) incorporates JPL’s patented delta doping process on the sensor in the FC300," Sgro adds. "This combination of JPL’s DD process and Panavision’s extremely quiet CMOS sensor produces 100 percent fill factor and allows selection of the sensor’s sensitivity to specific wave length, ranging from deep ultra-violet (DUV) to near infrared (NIR)."

@ "I wonder if they licensed the rest of the JPL/Caltech CMOS/APS IP portfolio?"

I would think "the rest" is mostly out of term, unless they were doing more ground-breaking work after you left or were submarining applications. Patent terms then were 17 years from the issue date, if I'm not mistaken.

Dr Fossum seems to forget that there are other pixel architectures than those that he originally borrowed from the ROIC world. Not all pixel require his "patents". THe use of delta-doping may well be the only JPL hook involved here

Seems from a recent blog entry that Caltech is actively suing ST and others, so I guess they must have some time left in the portfolio, generally speaking.You will have to ask them about your guesses above.

All in all, I really don't like video-taped depositions so at least in one respect, I am looking forward to Caltech wrapping up the licensing of that portfolio.

Dr Fossum seems to forget that there are other pixel architectures than those that he originally borrowed from the ROIC world. Not all pixel require his "patents". THe use of delta-doping may well be the only JPL hook involved here.